Various disclosures exist in the art concerning compositions comprising at least one transition metal in carbide/nitride form. A recent review article in this area, which shows both single metal and bimetallic carbides and nitrides, is S. T. Oyama, "Preparation and Catalytic Properties of Transition Metal Carbides and Nitrides", Catalysis Today, 15 (1992), 172-200. The bimetallic species listed on page 183 in Table 4 are carbides, nitrides, and carbonitrides but the listing is based on R. B. Kotel'nikov, Zhur. Neorg. Khim., 3 (1958) 841 in which no experimental data is provided. Bimetallic nitrides which are known to have B1 phases (P. Duwez et al., J. Electrochem. Soc. (1950) 97, 299), hexagonal phases (N. Schonberg, Acta Chem. Scand. (1954) 8, 213 and Acta Med. (1954), 2,427), Perovskite phases (R. Juza et al., Z. Elektrochem. Soc. (1959), 63, 551), .beta.--Mn phases (D. A. Evans et al., Acta Cryst. (1957), 10, 769), H-- phases (W. Jeitschko et al., Monatsh. Chem. 94, 95 and 95, respectively (1963, 1964 and 1964, respectively), 1198, 156, and 178, respectively), and eta-carbide phases (H. Nowotny et al., in "Phase Stability in Metals and Alloys", P. S. Rudman et al., ed., 1967, New York, p. 319 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,138,111 to E. L. Kugler et al.). The bimetallic nitrides synthesized by P. Duwez and co-workers were prepared isothermally at very high temperatures (e.g., 2398.degree. K. or higher) and would have surface areas in the neighborhood of 1 ma/gm or less.
Representative disclosures of single metal carbides or nitrides having catalytic properties include the following: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,325,843 and 4,326,992 to L. H. Slaugh et al. (supported tungsten carbide and molybdenum carbide compositions); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,060 to D. J. Sajkowski et al. (Group VIB metal carbide or nitride compositions). U.S. Pat. No. 4,426,366 to L. E. McCandlish deals with the single metal molybdenum oxycarbonitride compositions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,908 to A. Nishijama et al. describes an alumina-based ceramic which contains a hard dispersed phase which comprises a metal carbide, metal nitride, metal carbo-nitride, metal oxy-carbide, metal oxynitride or metal carbo-oxy-nitride. The metal may be at least one metal selected from the group consisting of titanium, zirconium, and hafnium. The monometallic composition TIN.sub.0.9 O.sub.0.1 is shown in Table 1-1a, No. 9, one of the "M(CNO)" powders that were blended.